Plugin vs Macro

[Thibaut Wavreille]

Hi everybody,

Could you explain me the difference between a plugin and a macro in confluence ?

Thank you a lot

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

A macro is a named function that a user can use to do something in their page. The use of macros is essentially "do clever stuff with the data on my pages"

Plugins are blocks of code that add functionality to the overall system. You add them in to do things like added reporting outside pages, add security layers, themes, enable scripting and so-on.

The confusion that you might run into is that a lot of macros are added by writing a plugin that provides it. (But not all of them, you can also do "user macros" which don't need a plugin)

[Davin Studer]

That is totally how I describe macros to my user base! I tell them that a macro is "cool stuff" that Confluence can do.

[Matthew J. Horn]

One thing to keep in mind is that "user macros" and "macros" are not always the same. Some folks, myself included, sometimes use these interchangeably.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Indeed, to the end user, they work in roughly the same way, so they pretty much are interchangeable.

[Thibaut Wavreille]

Perfect explanation, thank you